Map: Here
Map at the start for a change, so you can follow along the adventure. The original plan for this run was 2 miles easy and then 2 miles half marathon pace but work's been annoying me, and when the rest of life gets hard my running gets harder to balance it out. So the changed up plan was 1 mile easy to warm up, then 3 miles half marathon pace.
I was going to do a simple run straight up and down the down's link. I started running as soon as I got across the road as I'd got home late and so didn't have much time to spare. This meant crossing rough ground and going through the wood, and as I wanted to avoid this on the way back I cut .4 of a mile off the return leg.
At least that was the plan, but perhaps unsurprisingly my maths let me down and I turned too early. Fortunately the pace was solidly sub-7:30 min/mile, where I want to be for the half, so it was going well on that front. Then I decided to turn off the main track and head through the fields after 2.6 miles. I figured the ground probably wouldn't be that good, but at least I should fit in an extra bit of distance.
It turned out the track was not good at all. It started off okay, winding it's way through some open fields, then narrowed through a patch of nettles. After crossing someone's driveway I went onto another narrow path, this one with a handy ditch to fall into a couple of times while avoiding brambles. This was followed by a lovely hill with brambles and nettles, and by now I was feeling a little sorry for myself but continued to drag myself on.
Fortunately the top of the hill ended my little ramble through nature and I returned to something resembling a proper path. Just to rub it in the total distance left me a third of a mile short of target. It was a fun run though, I enjoyed visiting some tough ground and working against nature. Almost makes me understand why people do tough mudders. 66 miles to go...
Distance: 3.67 miles
Time: 28 minutes 56 seconds
Pace: 07:54 min/mile
Heart Rate: 176 bpm
No comments:
Post a Comment